A LABOUR activist borrowed £2,000 from his family and friends in a desperate bid to try and stamp out postal vote fraud in the city.

A LABOUR activist borrowed £2,000 from his family and friends in a desperate bid to try and stamp out postal vote fraud in the city.

Walayat Hussain has also invested £500 from his own savings to finance an election petition that could get the result of last month's local poll in Aston declared void.

The election in the traditional Labour inner city stronghold was a clean sweep for three Liberal Democrats, but only by margins as low as nine votes.

Details of fraud allegations contained in High Court papers will now be served on the three councillors and a date for the trial set within another month.

In the documents Mr Hussain, supported by four other Aston residents, alleged up to 300 postal votes flooded into the elections office on the eve of the poll - most of them filled in without the voter's knowledge.

Some were even out of the country at the time, he said, and others were from illegal immigrants who were not entitled to take part.

"Threats of deportation were made by Liberal supporters to first generation migrants if they did not sign postal vote papers for their party," his petition claims.

"I have raised the money to bring this to court because I want people to stop fiddling the voting system," he said.

"This is England, not Pakistan or Bangladesh. I hope justice will be done and an example made of the people behind this voting scam."

Last month's election was a re-run of the 2004 poll, declared void by a High Court judge because of widespread fraud which included the discovery of a Labour vote forging factory in a Witton warehouse.

The Lib Dem behind that successful election petition was trainee barrister Ayoub Khan, who topped the poll last month.

He maintained Mr Hussain's allegations were unfounded and based on a personal grudge.